Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been rushing around so much I’m sure I resemble a headless chook.
When the opportunity came to try something to slow me down, typically, I rushed into it, and luckily it was great. I’d like to share my experience of last weekend. At a women’s retreat. My first ever SILENT retreat!!!! Just got home!
Goodness. Well, not talking took a little getting used to, but actually it was pretty cool to just smile and nod and go about your thoughts for a couple of days. But you know, writers have the bonus on non writers because I just talked to my notebook.
No computers, mobile phones, or outside contact. Verbally, I only whispered a couple of times and therefore all the comments, utterances, mental discussions I had, were with myself. It’s all there in blue ink. Written gabbling. The descriptions I will share in my next seaside book. And the poems just fell out.
For the retreat, the meals were catered, superbly I might add, but vegetarian and I’m not a vegie lover, more of a meatatarian, carnivore if truth be known, but there too, was growth. 
We stayed in bunkhouses, basic and seven women to a bunkhouse, some woke early and wanted to shower (that would be me), some giggled, and some weren’t sure what the rest of us were on. But even that unaccustomed community was a gem I wouldn’t have missed. And I learnt to be kind to myself. To soften. To realise the harshness we sometimes judge ourselves with is not in fact necessary or even real. So that was cool. And a relief. And I’ve started to learn to remember to feel the earth beneath my feet. Not just get somewhere and wonder how it happened. To be present in the moment.
Like the beach at sunrise. I saw dolphins surfing in the waves, and stretching away sand when I was the only person in sight, I sat at night on the beach in the dark by myself (after threading my way through the silent woods with my penlight torch) and gazed at the amazing stars with the thunder of the surf in my ears, and still felt safe.
Then there was the rainforest. Huge and beside the sea. It had a boardwalk which was at least 500 yards long I’d think, half a kilometre of boards, and wound under palms and strangler figs and the place where lithe lianas coil (for the Australian’s) – it’s from a poem by Dorothea McKellar that we learnt at school. http://www.abpa.org.au/Bush_Poetry/Traditional_Poetry/my_country.html
And this morning I took a three-legged stool, alone except for the forest and the forest dwellers, and sat between three ancient figs and later, I stood and swung like the drum in Karate Kid because I’d seen someone else do it at the beach, and suddenly the tears were running down my face. I wanted to hug a tree.
We had Dharma talks with the most amazing woman teacher, Radha Nicholson from Byron Bay, you could google her, and meditation, and women’s stories and at the last we sat in a circle and spoke of what stood out for us over the last 3 days. In the end, the fact that women, through thick and thin, through unimaginable hardships and great joy, have such strength and wisdom and compassion that I felt so blessed to have been in that place. And blessed to go home to my husband who loved me. But I’ll be back next year and if anyone wants to come with me send me a mail and I’ll tell you more.
Big hugs
Fi
